Words Which Frequently Come Before ‘SO+MANY’

There are so many ways we can look at this.

There’s so many things to do!
Note that native English speakers will say there’s in quick, natural speech even if the noun ends up being plural. In fact, it’s used a lot although some would say it’s a mistake.

That’s why so many people have decided to stop using social media.

Why so many?

I’ve seen so manybeautiful girls at the beach today.

He’s touched so many lives.

You’ve covered so many stories over the last few years.

Her work has affected so many lives out there.

This has been difficult for so many people.

In so many ways, he’s become the most important player this season.

We have so many problems to go over.

Other Useful Patterns And Phrases

So many more

There are so many more people we need to help.

So many of

It’s great that so many of you have come tonight.

In so many words

This means to be direct in telling someone something:

eg 1: I told her, in so many words, to stop being rude to you.

eg 2:Gavin: Did he say he liked her?Oliver: Well, not in so many words.

So many are

If the noun which you’re referring to is understood from the context, you can leave it out:

Stuart: It’s tough to find work just now.Lenka: Yeah, so many are struggling.

What’s The Main Point?

There is a big debate among English teachers whether we should be focussing on grammar or whether it should be lexis/vocabulary.

One problem with the grammar-first approach is that you might see English like this:

[Grammar structure] + [single word to complete the sentence]

Eg. I’ve been to…Sydney.

Often there is a focus in English teaching on what is possible in the language and not what is probable.

Personally, I believe you can look at language from both a lexical and a grammatical perspective. This post today is more about seeing possible ‘grammar words’ (so much) as being separate lexical items that interact with other words. When you see how words interact with each other to form collocations, you’ll speak less in a word-by-word way, make fewer mistakes and speak with more flow.

A few other points:

I’ve checked some of the most common words that go with so much, as you can see above, and I hope it shows you what is natural in English compared to what is simply possible.

Focussing more on what is natural and what is frequent in the language shows you how the language is really used.

Focussing on English collocations can get you away from ‘Single Word Syndrome’ – English is in fact full of words which come together frequently (phrasal verbs, idioms, expressions, and so on) and these words together can form a single meaning.

Many believe that collocations are more memorable for you to learn than simply studying individual words.

Focussing on what is said in spoken English by native and proficient speakers is the best way to develop your own ‘internal bank’ of English vocabulary. Language comes in chunks (= words that are related to each other eg “in so many ways“) and knowing these chunks helps communicate your message more clearly. It should also be quicker to remember a chunk that is in your ‘language bank’ than having to remember the grammar rule and then implement it in conversation.

You can look at collocations and see that the grammar is ‘built in’ anyhow, whereas just focussing on grammar won’t do as much to improve your vocabulary.

Ultimately my aim is to present different ideas on learning English for you to discover more about English and how you learn best. If you’ve spent a lot of time on grammar from various coursebooks, try and have a go at seeing language from a lexical point of view, focussing on frequent collocations in English.

What do you think? If you liked this post, please feel free to leave a comment or share it on social media.

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Comments

Hi Sergio, my ‘quick answer’ for you without researching it is that “twice as much” sounds more exact than “twice more than.” For example, if I bought my shirt for $50 and you bought yours for $100, that would be twice as much as what I paid. “Twice more” for some people might mean $150. Do you see what I mean?

Interestingly “two times more” is becoming more frequent in English, which I did just check. I’d usually say “Bill drank twice as much as Simon.” However, in giving statistics, you can see from this screenshot that “two times more” is used in reporting findings:

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Welcome to Get Into English. I'm David, an English teacher, traveller & language enthusiast from Melbourne. I write articles on learning English especially for people wishing to live in or travel to Australia, and for those who are interested in business and all kinds of issues!

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